Already
famous for its “Chicago values” of murder, sodomy, and corruption,
the city of Chicago has now given us a glimpse of the not-so-distant future
of Obamacare in America.

Starting
very soon, city employees will either have to sign up for the Chicago
Lives Healthy “wellness program” or else—there’s
always an “or else” in Chicago—pay an extra $50 a month
for their health care plan (see “Chicago Pushing ‘Wellness
Program on Its Employees” by Susan Jones, CNSNews.com, Aug. 24 ).
“Our program will change lives,” gloated Mayor Rahm Emanuel,
who expressed delight that some 22,000 have signed up so far—rather
than toss an extra $50 a month into the garbage disposal. This is what
Democrats usually mean by “choice.”

While
few would object to being given assorted “free” health screenings—“free”
means they aren’t telling you what it will cost the city’s
taxpayers—there comes a point at which everyone in the program will
have to take part in a “Wellness Assessment.” This is supposedly
“a confidential questionnaire that assesses life and environmental
factors that are critical to your health, well-being and your ability
to improve both.” You’ll have to answer 60 questions intended
“to get a better sense of factors that can’t be tested,”
including the unsuspecting individual’s health history, mental health,
stress, and “barriers to change.”

Let’s
take a machete to this verbal jungle to see what’s hiding in it.

If you
really are OK with a bunch of Chicago bureaucrats assessing your mental
health, then nobody needs to assess it. You’re crazy.

Stress?
How about the stress of having the Western world’s most corrupt
political machine deciding what you have to do to be healthy—as
they define healthy? If you’re already a stress eater, you’ll
really blimp up after a few months of this.

What
do you suppose they mean by “barriers to change”? That could
mean just about anything, couldn’t it? “You ate at Chick-fil-A
the other day. You didn’t contribute any money to the president’s
re-election campaign. You have a picture of Sara Palin in your desk drawer.
You’ve logged on to News With Views. All of these are barriers to
change. Plus you smoke and drink and eat red meat and Twinkies! But don’t
worry—we’re here to help you change.”

You’re
going to have to go through all this to keep your job. They will assign
to you “wellness activities,” whatever those turn out to be,
“which must be performed every month.” They’ll check
on you to make sure. These activities will be designed to help you reach
your “wellness goals” as defined by Rahm Emanuel and his merry
men.

Now
are you getting just a little bit uneasy about this?

But
here’s the punch line—today Chicago, tomorrow the entire country.
Now that the government has made itself responsible for your health care,
they will demand that you stay health. Or else.

So…

Get
up off that couch! Get out from behind the wheel of that car! Turn off
that TV and go to bed! What, you’re still in bed? Wake up! Give
us twenty push-ups, twenty sit-ups, twenty jumping-jacks! And what’s
this we hear about you not eating your tofu-burgers? You’ll burn
off those calories, pal, or we’ll burn ‘em off for you!

We also
have grave concerns about your mental health. A neighbor overheard you
praying! You were actually seen not attending the Gay Pride Parade! We
have you on tape making rude noises during the president’s televised
speech the other night—which you were late in tuning in to, by the
way. These are all signs of acute mental non-wellness!

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Does
anybody really, truly want to live this way?

Can
anyone even imagine the cost of micromanaging the lives of everybody in
America? The surveillance, the paperwork, the sheer magnitude of the administrative
details?

People
become liberals because they think God’s laws are too harsh and
too demanding. They’re like kids who run away from home because
their parents tell them to stop playing video games and clean their rooms,
who wind up in the hands of pimps and cults and gurus who demand of them
a helluva lot more than their parents ever did.

Will
they still call this country America when it isn’t America anymore?

Lee Duigon,
a contributing editor with the Chalcedon Foundation, is a former newspaper
reporter and editor, small businessman, teacher, and horror novelist.
He has been married to his wife, Patricia, for 34 years. See his new
fantasy/adventure novels, Bell Mountain and The Cellar Beneath the Cellar,
available on www.amazon.com